Artist: Rotimi Fani-Kayode

A new photography exhibition exploring a radical vision of culture, intimacy, desire and pain

In a space where the barriers between difference and fantasy are dissolved, Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s photographs are a spirited exploration of culture, intimacy, desire and pain. From 1983 until his death in 1989, the artist lived and worked in Brixton, where his studio transcended into a sanctuary visualising black queer self-expression.

A prominent figure in the Black British art scene, Fani-Kayode’s staged and crafted portraits playfully beckoning the viewer to embrace new possibilities of the self. The Studio – Staging Desire is the culmination of meticulous research into the artist’s archives, presenting never-before-seen works.

The studio enabled Fani-Kayode to live, be free, find love and express himself amongst London’s fluid, racial multiverse. With an emphasis on gesture, pose and a sense of longing the photographs he produced reveal a cosmos of signs and symbols to understand the dynamics of desire.

His transgressive and radical vision broke through boundaries of art history and Yoruba spirituality. These photographs reveal what it meant for Fani-Kayode to negotiate the status of ‘outsider’, turning this into the generative force that has defined the artist’s practice.